Supersonic flight returning to US after half-century ban

lobbly 61 points 54 comments July 01, 2026
www.forbes.com · View on Hacker News

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/trumps-transportation-secretary...

Discussion Highlights (7 comments)

mattas

Not sure how this does anything to alter the laws of physics. But I guess it's a step in the right direction.

imglorp

If you really want to make an impact on the noise floor, ban gasoline leaf blowers.

foobarqux

0.11 pound per square foot is what is being proposed. That's 108 decibels. Which is between standing next to a lawn mower and standing next to a car horn. I don't see how anyone will tolerate that in practice. https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/db

arjie

This is so exciting. The only ones I know working on this are Boom (unless they’ve pivoted entirely into AI DC turbines). Between this and the wind-turbine-blade air transporter it’s an exciting time for aviation. Now if we can only transition off leaded fuel!

pibaker

If sonic booms become a routine occurrence over America, I expect to see a backlash against supersonic flight unifying everyone between chemtrail conspiracy theorists and the greenpeace. The anti data center backlash we have today will look like child's play.

bearcobra

On one hand I think we should applaud when regulators target the specific issue (like noise or pollution level) vs using some other metric to achieve their desired outcome. On the other hand I don’t have a ton of faith that current administration will set the targets at levels that have the general public’s interest in mind

jauntywundrkind

The people speaking against this seem to be being flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48742093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48742078 I do think this is ridiculously anti-social. Sonic booms are incredibly disruptive. This might be better, perhaps, but all odds are on this still shaking your house pretty significantly when it goes overhead.

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